New Report Says One in Five Refugees Denied Asylum Due to Late Application Submission

22 Oct 2010

According to a new report, one in five refugees is denied asylum because they did not apply within one year of arriving in the U.S. and missed the 12-month deadline required by Congress. The report states that in 46 percent of applications denied because they were submitted late, the Board of Immigration Appeals provided only one reason for the application’s denial – that it was submitted after the filing deadline.

The report was published by Heartland Alliance’s National Immigration Justice Center and Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights. It is available online at www.immigrantjustice.org/oneyeardeadline.

The one-year deadline law was passed by Congress in 1996 and requires asylum seekers to either establish clearly and convincingly that their applications were filed within one year of their arrival or that their applications were delayed due to extraordinary circumstances.